How do you deal with death?

[Judge]

At my age, people are dying around me and this is a issue that I have to deal with more often. It just seems to me that I'm not as emotional as I should be.

I guess this dynamic has only recently hit me. Need time to absorb it I suppose.

 

[Coupe]

For me, it takes a while for death to sink in. I remember when my cousin, who was a year younger than I, passed away following a boat accident when I was 8 years old, and I didn't really react that much at all. As an adult, I can fully grasp how tragic it was, and am still wracked with guilt over how I failed to respond accordingly. I think for me, it was a combination of it not really sinking in for me, and my feeling that if I didn't acknowledge it at all, it would make it not be true.

 

[buckyboy14]

I'll be 19 later this month, and I've never had anyone close to me die. The only I've known even a little bit who have died were my great-grandmother, my stepfather's mother, and my fourth-grade teacher, who was still pretty young and died of cancer a couple years ago. Hers probably hit me the hardest, because she was an awesome teacher. I watched a tribute video her daughter made over and over, and I cried quite a bit. And while my paternal grandparents are in extremely good health, my maternal grandparents aren't great. I would guess my maternal grandfather will be the first t go (sorry for being morbid), and I have no idea how I'll handle that, since it will still be extremely foreign to me.

 

[Progster]

I don't feel any particular emotion, I just feel numb and detached from all the goings on. The stress of the changes it brings, having to deal with the social aspects such as funerals and other people's emotions, all exhaust me.

 

[Iamarock]

I have a hard time understanding the emotions people go through when people die. It's not like it is unexpected. At some point we all die. Sure sometimes it is sudden, but still, death happens. I usually find myself faking extreme sadness when someone dies just so people call me insensitive. When my mother died three years ago, I knew I would miss her, but she was sick and death was inevitable. We were very close, and I think about her often, but I never really got all broken up about it. She still lives in my mind.

The other thing I don't understand is why people go to a cemetery to look at the graves of people that have died.

I like what Robin Williams said he wanted on his gravestone. He wanted it to read "I knew this would happen". That about sums it up for me.

 

[Jacob Morrison]

Somewhat related but today I was driving by a cemetery and saw a grave with a couple, where one of them had already died and the other had not. On the one that had not it displayed their name and their date of birth with their death date not displayed, obviously because they were still alive. I thought about that deeply for a while. I would really hate to see my name on a grave...

 

[Tom]

It can really vary. At times I feel emotionally unaffected, and at others very affected. But it is always a time of thoughtfulness, both good and bad. It doesn't even have to be a current death, but just a memorial or place where people died. Sometimes my mind seems to draw in a lot of the mood and my reactions to a place almost like sensing or hearing the spirits of it. I don't actually believe in the spiritual aspect, so guess its just an over active imagination.

I guess I should add I thought my own time had come several times. It wasn't fun and was different kinds of painful, but I always retained mental clarity and became resigned to it. Accepted it was happening. But always squeaked by somehow.

 

[Slothra]

I've had a lot of close friends & family die. It took quite some time for me to accept their deaths, but they're gone, and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't grieve, really, rather, I'm in the habit of celebrating the lives of those we've lost & cherishing their memories, because if you're important to me, and you die, I know you wouldn't want me to spend my days crying over your grave. Those are the kinds of people I let into my life, and those are the kinds of people I want to know that I would give them the same message after I pass, if I could send a message from there. Then again, I don't believe in an afterlife, but what can I say, some concepts can't be put into words so well.

It took a lot of trauma & no small amount of personal conflict to be comfortable like that, but it's been the best way for me to cope with the passings I've had to endure.